The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1907. OUR FOOTBALLERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 166, 13 July 1907, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1907. OUR FOOTBALLERS.

Tmr the cause that Lacks assistance. For the wrong Hint needs restittMce, far the future t* the distance, 'And tins peed that tee can do.

Considering the immense amount of public interest displayed throughout the colony in our national game, we need not offer any excuse for dealing in these columns with such an event as the Australian tour of our representative football team. The first match of the tour has been played to-day at Sydney, and news of its result will be eagerly expected by many thousands of people throughout the country. Given anything like fine weather, there should be a record crowd to see a splendid game. We understand that the New South Wales team is thoroughly representative of the best Rugby talent in the State; and there is no doubt that our friends on " the other side" have improved rapidly at the game within the last five years. But the team that they will have to face is remarkably efficient and skilful. It is the opinion of several good judges who watched the match between the combined Wellington teams and the touring fifteen last week that the New Zealand team now in Sydney will be able to show their opponents something altogether exceptional in the way of Rugby football; and without committing ourselves to definite predictions, we may say that we expect this opinion to be completely justified. As to public opinion here there can be no mistake about its tone. We can safely say that not one per cent of our football enthusiasts have conceived tha possibility of defeat for their champions? and, good as the Australians probably are, the question in athletic circles today is not who will win the match, but how many points will New Zealand score. We need not enter into technical details about the constitution of our representative team; but it is satisfactory to be assured on all hands that the fifteen is very nearly as strong as it could be made. New Zealand forwards can generally be trusted to hold Australian forwards fairly safe; and if our forwards once control the game, tbe attacking power of the famous "All Black" contingent in the team should decide the struggle in our favour.

Our readers will have observed that the football public in New South Wales has taken a good deal of interest in the proposal to send Home a professional Rugby team from this colony; and the leading promoters of Rugby football in Sydney have expressed great satisfaction at the vigorous measures taken by our Rugby Union to prevent the insidious encroachments of professionalism upon our splendid national' game. However, the manager of the team has publicly stated in Sydney that none of the team now on tour will be found in the ranks of the professionals, if they should eventually start for England. This we may regard as authoritative; and, indeed, we would hardly anticipate that men who have signed a definite statement disowning professionalism and all its works, and asserting " their allegiance to amateur athletics, could be induced to break their pledged word and thus disgrace themselves as well as the game and the country they represent We have no doubt that a man may be a professional and yet be a splendid athlete and play an honest game. But to pretend to be amateurs for the sake of getting a cheap trip to Australia, and to declare themselves professionals as soon as their purpose is served:—However, we would prefer toleave our discussion of such conduct and our opinion of the men who could be guilty of it till the necessity for comment arises. Meantime we wish our representatives every success during their tour, in the full confidence that their country's reputation for fairplay and athletic prowess is safe in their hands.